Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Ghosts of Netley

“And so you are!” my mother cried. Two spots of colour flamed suddenly in her cheeks. “An airing in his equipage! And he is only this moment arrived in town! But, Jane — my dear, dear girl! Now his mother is gone, I suppose there can be no objection to his marrying where he likes! Not that she was so very high in the instep — and foreign besides — yet she may have had her scruples as to connexion. There can be no question of prohibition now, for I am sure His Grace the Duke doesn’t trouble himself about his lordship’s affairs. Only think of it, Jane! How grand you shall be!”

“Mamma,” I interposed desperately lest Lord Harold should overhear, “I believe Martha is in want of you in the kitchen.”

“Fiddlesticks!”

“Indeed, madam, Martha is calling. You should not like your dinner spoilt.”

Nothing but food is so near my mother’s heart as marriage. She turned hastily for the passage. “Enjoy yourself, my dear! And when you have accepted his lordship, pray apologise for my having disliked him so excessively in the past. I am certain we shall deal famously together, once he has given up his opera dancers. Take care to wrap up warmly! You never appear to advantage with a reddened nose!”

In the event, the carriage was a closed one, with the Wilborough arms emblazoned on the door — as I had suspected, an equipage of his brother’s, pressed into service. The squabs were of pale gold silk; a brazier glowed at our feet. The coachman had been walking the horses this quarterhour in expectation of his master’s summons. Orlando was mounted behind. He was magnificent today in a round hat with a broad brim, and a dark blue livery; the woodland sprite was fled. I smiled into his dark eyes and received an answering twinkle; but he was on his dignity, and offered no word.

“The Itchen Dockyard’s fate is uncertain, with the shipwright murdered; but it is possible we may find Mr. Dixon’s workers there, labouring to reverse disaster’s effects,” Lord Harold said.

“They cannot cause the ship to spring, phoenixlike, from the ashes.”

“Absent the shipwright, to whom should I speak, Jane? Is there a yard foreman?”

“I do not know whether he bears that title — but there is a Lascar, one Jeremiah by name, in whom Mr. Dixon appeared to repose his trust.”

“We may achieve the place, I think, from the road above Porter’s Mead?”

His lordship informed his coachman of the direction, and settled himself on the seat opposite. The door was closed, and all the bustle of town abruptly shut out; and for an instant, consigned to that sheltered orb of quiet, I was struck dumb with shyness. When I had last driven out in Lord Harold’s company, it had been August in Derbyshire, and the equipage an open curricle. Then he had taken the reins himself, the better part of his attention claimed by the road. Now we surveyed each other across an expanse of satin-lined cushions. The interior of the chaise was finer by far than the condition of my dress; I felt that I ought to be arrayed in a ball gown, with shoe-roses on my slippers.

“I have treated my mother to a falsehood,” I said in an effort to break the silence, “for I assured her you desired to give me an airing. That must be impossible in a closed carriage.”

“We shall not be confined for long.” The keenness of his glance was disconcerting; was it possible the Rogue felt as awkward as I? “I am so accustomed to your company, my dear, that I forget what is due to propriety. Your excellent parent is even now surveying our departure from behind her parlour curtain, and considering whether I have compromised your reputation. Have I ruined you, Jane, a thousand times in our long acquaintance?”

The question was so direct — and so unexpected — that I failed to contrive a suitable answer.

“Naturally. Having been seen even once in your company, I have not a shred of respectability left.”

“Shall I offer for you, then?” he demanded abruptly.

The rampant colour rose in my cheeks. Oh, that I could believe he had heard nothing of my mother’s speculations!

“Pray do not say such things even in jest, my lord. You must know that I aspire to a career as an authoress, and such ladies never marry. Domestic cares will eat up one’s time, and leave no room for the employment of a pen.”

“If you insist upon trifling with a gentleman’s heart — then tell me of this novel of yours. This Susan .”

I remembered how Orlando had enquired about my book’s publication, as he stood in the Abbey ruins; naturally his intelligence derived from his master’s. “I never speak of my writing to anyone.”

“But your brother Henry does . He possesses not the slightest instinct for discretion, you know. It shall be his undoing one day.”

Henry and his fashionable wife, Eliza, Comtesse de Feuillide, had long formed a part of the London ton, though their circle was less lofty than Lord Harold’s own. The Rogue enjoyed my brother’s company whenever they met — and how often that might occur, in the mêlée of London routs, I could not say. It had been some time since Eliza had mentioned Lord Harold in her correspondence.

“I wrote Susan so long ago, I declare I hardly recall her outline. She was the first of a long succession of works to fall from my pen.”

“There are other novels? All dedicated to a different lady?”

“No less than four books are entombed in my wardrobe, sir, and none of them fit to be read beyond the fireside circle, I assure you.” [12] Jane probably refers, here, to the manuscript versions of Northanger Abbey (Susan), Pride and Prejudice (First Impressions), Sense and Sensibility (Elinor and Marianne), and Lady Susan . She had also begun, and abandoned, a novel entitled The Watsons by 1807. — Editor’s note.

“I wonder.” He studied me thoughtfully. “You are not unintelligent, and possess, moreover, an acute understanding of the human heart.”

I found I could not meet his gaze.

“The novel portrays, one imagines, the veritable apogee of all Susans?”

“She is a young girl, for there can never be so much interest in a woman once she has passed the age of five-and-twenty. It is better, indeed, for the novelist’s fortunes if her heroine should expire before that point.”

“I am entirely of your opinion. Does Susan suffer a painful end?”

“Hardly as swift as she might wish, and not within the compass of the novel. I fancy she dies in childbirth, like all the best women of my acquaintance — but for the purposes of this story, I have merely sent her to an abbey.”

“Excellent decision, given the environs to which you are subjected. Does she moon among the ruins, intent upon discovering a swain?”

How to describe my poor neglected darling, languishing these many years in the dust of Stationers Hall Court?

“Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that my purpose falls beyond the mere entertaining power of the best novels,” I attempted. “Let us assume, in fact, that my object is to satirize such works — in the very act of mastering the form.”

“Subtle Jane! But how is such an ambition to be satisfied?”

“By portraying a creature so enslaved to the practice of novel-reading, that she ceases to discern the difference between the stuff of books, and the stuff of life.”

“A victim of literature!” Lord Harold crowed aloud. “Very well — and so, among the ruins, does she mistake past for present, and imagine herself a nun?”

“Nay, my lord. She is sent on a visit to an ancient abbey, where she hopes to encounter mysterious decay — only to suffer the disappointment of a modern establishment, thrown up over the bones of the old, where all is just as it should be! The master of the house has not murdered his wife; his daughter is not a prisoner in the tower; and the handsome young suitor is anything but a foundling prince. In short, he is a clergyman.”